


put to words

by Fourier



Category: Sagas of Sundry, Sagas of Sundry: Dread
Genre: High School, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Reference to AIDS Crisis, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 12:37:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11806140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fourier/pseuds/Fourier
Summary: Tanner isn’t like that, and he has an enumerated list of reasons to back up his claim.





	put to words

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclaimer: I'm in full support of bi Tanner headcanons, and stuff involving Sat + one or more of the boys. This is just a single thing I wanted to explore.

Reason 1: Sat.

He’s known Sat for ages. Since before he can remember. She’s a steady constant in his life, even when she’s not--even when she disappears for weeks, for months at a time, retreating into whatever more exciting life she lives with Kayden and his crew.

She brings this feeling of warmth with her, whenever she’s around. A weird sort of warmth, a warmth covered these days in thick make-up and teeth he thinks she’d file to a point if she could--but a warmth. She feels like home, like safety. When he makes her laugh, his chest lights up with pride.

If that’s not love, what is?

He traces that feeling back to its roots, back to her, and digs into the soil with his heels. He says it to himself like a mantra, this feeling that he holds up to the light and is sure, is _sure_ , is what love must be. _Sat_ , he tells himself. _Sat, Sat. I love her. Sat. I’m in love with her. Sat, Sat, Sat._

He touches himself to the thought of her--Kayden tells him it’s better like that, when you’re thinking of someone--but it’s strange. It feels alien. It’s not the real thing, he thinks. It’s not her; it’s a facsimile, a distraction.

 _Sat_ , he repeats to himself, eyes shut, hands in fists. _Sat, Sat_.

 

Reason 2: He’s a good kid.

Not just a good kid; he’s a Good Kid. He doesn’t smoke. He doesn’t do drugs. He barely even drinks, for God’s sake. He turns in all his homework on time and he meticulously develops his photographs and he wears plaid because he _likes_ plaid. He is exactly who his parents raised him to be--he’s quiet, and he’s obedient, and he’s so normal it pains him, sometimes.

And there’s nothing wrong with being _like that_ , but Tanner just… isn’t. It isn’t him; it doesn’t slot neatly into the world of Ivy League ambitions and Sunday school youth volunteering and school-sponsored extracurriculars he’s so carefully built.

People who are like that are loud. They’re reckless. They’re bitter. They’re defiant, they’re angry, they wear mohawks and paint their fucking nails black and they refuse to scrub them clean when the teacher reports them for a dress code violation. They brag about the things they did on the weekend loud enough for other people to hear and they don’t care if they do.

They don’t get bumped into lockers and laughed at when they drop their books; they get _FAG_ spray-painted across their locker door in bright red paint. They get spit on (and they spit back). They get the shit kicked out of them.

Tanner’s a Good Kid. His locker doesn’t have a scratch.

 

Reason 3: Everyone has dreams like that.

Dreams sort through what you think about all day, and he spends all day with his friends. Naturally, obviously, they’re going to work their way into his dreams--a face to put into a scenario, regardless of who they are or what it is.

The fact that it’s always the same person, always in the same scenario, doesn’t mean a god damn thing.

It could be anybody. It could be anything. It just happens to be Kayden’s hands on the backs of his knees, Kayden’s eyes looking up at him through wet, darkened lashes. Kayden’s mouth working over him expertly, a flashing tongue stud that curls over the tip and Tanner doesn’t know what that feels like but in his dreams, in his dreams it feels like a revelation.

In his dreams it isn’t real; in his dreams he doesn’t worry, he doesn’t think, he never even realizes until after he wakes up. In his dreams he twists his hands in Kayden’s hair and shoves into his mouth with confidence, with a bolt of lightning up his spine. In his dreams Kayden pins him down and shows him what he knows Kayden already knows, teaches him how this works, how it can work, how their bodies fit together and how that feels.

When he wakes up it’s in a cold sweat. He’s hard. His hands are numb. His mouth feels dry.

He rolls over--doesn’t even dare to think about _fixing_ the problem happening in his boxers--and he screws his eyes shut and he balls his hands into fists.

 _Sat_. It’s just a dream. _Sat_. Everyone has them. _Sat, Sat._ The wires got crossed, his brain is confused, it should be her, it should be her, it should be her.

 

(Reason 4: He doesn’t want to die.

Tanner’s smart. He watches the news. He listens to his parents’ outrage, to the President’s silence. He hears the things his teachers say. He hears the awful shit that Kayden jokes about, and the genuine _fear_ under those jokes.

He knows what happens, to people like h- like that. He can’t do it. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want to die.)

 

Reason 5: He’s never, not in a million years, going to give Kayden the satisfaction.

“So,” Kayden asks him, deliberately slotting a pen between his teeth. “You ready to admit it yet?”

“Fuck off,” Tanner grumbles, already gathering up his supplies and standing to leave.

“Come on, I’m just trying to fucking help,” Kayden laughs. “This isn’t doing you any god damn good, you know. Just _fucking_ accept it.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Tanner snaps, and he doesn’t, because his mind is blank and his heart is hammering in his chest.

“Tanner,” Kayden says, and somehow he’s in front of Tanner now. “You’re the dumbest fucking nerd I’ve ever met in my miserable life. Stop running away like a pussy, alright? Face the fucking music, it happens to all of us sooner or later.”

Tanner stares him down; Kayden chews on the bottom of his lip.

“And honestly,” he says, and Tanner’s gaze snaps back to his eyes, “I’d rather it be _sooner_. Like, before you make you _and_ her fucking miserable cause you think she’s what you want.”

His blood flashes hot, the mantra flaring in his brain, ricocheting around the empty room up there. “ _Fuck_ you,” Tanner spits. “Don’t you fucking talk to me about Sat. You don’t deserve her.”

Something, in that second, passes across Kayden’s face. It looks oddly like the look Sat gives him sometimes. Almost like pity.

“Have it your way,” Kayden shrugs. “But I’m telling you now, this isn’t how you wanna live. It’s _exhausting_ , and it’s _miserable_ , and life is too much of those things already to not suck a cock when you want-”

Tanner punches him.

It hurts; it sends shockwaves up Tanner’s arm, and Kayden barely even seems to react. He rubs his jaw, thumb pressed into the cheek, laughing low in his chest--and Tanner turns away before Kayden stands up, before he can hear another word out of his bullshit mouth.

 

So no.

He’s not going to let Kayden win. He’s not going to let that searing pain in his chest win, either. He’s not going to let this thing get the better of him.

He’ll go to his fucking grave with it, if he has to.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me @brotherkashaw on tumblr; it's primarily a critrole blog but you can yell about Dread too if you like cause apparently i'm In It now


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